Recently, I had to create a program to send messages between two winforms executable. I used a tool with simple built-in functionalities to prevent having to figure out all the ins and outs of this vast quantity of protocols that exist.

But now, I'm ready to learn more about the internals difference between each of theses protocols. I googled a couple of them but it would be greatly appreciate to have a good reference book that gives me a clean idea of how each protocol works and what are the pros and cons in a couple of context.

Here is a list of nice protocols that I found:

Shared memory

TCP

List item

Named Pipe

File Mapping

Mailslots

MSMQ (Microsoft Queue Solution)

WCF

I know that all of these protocols are not specific to a language, it would be nice if example could be in .net.

I know that WCF is a very powerful technology but in a lot of situations, it's like moving a canned food of beans with a very large boat. This is the reason why I want to have a deep explanation of each of these protocols.
–
SamuelJun 27 '12 at 17:14

I am afraid there is no single book that would describe all listed protocols in detail. However, you may look at "Windows System Programming, Third Edition" which has topic on Interprocess communication, featuring pipes and mailslots.
–
YusubovJun 27 '12 at 19:22